Christmas Preparation

As we get ready for Christmas, the Brightman household has been busy with holiday decorating, making cookies, and our last project was a gingerbread house that we decorated as a family. Well, actually, Mary Bradford decorated most of it and was not stingy with the candy at all!

After her first work of art, we let her use the left over icing on a smaller version. She thoroughly enjoyed the process and wanted to do another one!! Out of all of our holiday projects, this was the messiest one...

Christmas Photos at Ann's House

We usually take the Brightman family Christmas picture during Thanksgiving. Since Todd and I are taking Mary Bradford to Decatur for Thanksgiving to spend some time with my family, we had to go ahead and take the Christmas picture. Although it is a little early, I must admit that I have already put up AND decorated my Christmas tree as I have gotten into the season early this year. As she always does, Mary Bradford had a great time running around her Nana’s house (making a mess) and pulling out many, many, many toys. I had another proud mommy moment as Mary Bradford told us all that she had to go potty. We watched her go inside and assumed she was using her potty, but you know what people say when you assume. Ann normally keeps Mary Bradford’s potty near the living room, but since she was having the family over, she moved it to the guest bathroom. When Mary Bradford went inside to go POTTY, she wandered through the house looking for her potty and when she could not find it and could not hold it any longer, she finally decided to go on Nana’s floor. She promptly came outside and told me exactly where to find it in front of everyone! At that moment, I knew that being a mommy was a very important job…

Bass Pro Shop on November 22, 2008

We had dinner with our good friends, Stephanie and Matt, and their little boy Evan the other night. We then took Evan and Mary Bradford to the Bass Pro Shop in Spanish Fort. They were amazed at the huge fish tanks and real-looking stuffed animals that are all over the store. Mary Bradford ended up taking a Barbie fishing pole as a souvenir after of course, she dropped her entire Vitamin Water in the checkout area. As soon as the clerk paged maintenance over the loud speaker and said that she needed a cleanup, I knew that motherhood was definitely among me, but surprisingly, I was not embarrassed as it was truly an accident. Anyway, the picture shown is Mary Bradford willingly sitting in Santa’s lap. She asked him for a dollhouse and a fishing pole which is quite interesting.

Auburn / Georgia Game on November 15th

We loaded up in the car and took another trip to stay in the camper at Auburn and had so much fun that it almost obliterated the memory of yet another loss by the Auburn Tigers. Well, at least for me it did. Now, Todd, Brad and Ryan are another story… For this trip, we were joined in our camper by Ann, Brad and Ryan and in the camper beside us were Todd’s cousins, Sherry, Alan, Ashley and Joey. The weather turned out to be soooooo cold and Mary Bradford was entertained by having hand warmers in her pocket. She even made a few friends with some little girls and boys who were tailgating next to us. They all enjoyed playing with Sherry’s portable basketball goal, which by the way, was a great find. Tailgating will be even more fun when Todd’s cousin, Ashley, has her little girl tailgating with us. This ends our Auburn season as we will not be attending the Iron Bowl. Thanks again to Sherry and Alan, we have “winterized” our camper and will most likely not visit it again until the cold weather has passed. We are looking forward to making some more family memories in our camper….

Fall Festival

We recently attended a Fall festival and Mary Bradford had a fabulous time with our cousin Jessica. We played on the inflatables, bouncers, played a little golf, ate some ice cream, and even attempted to take a train ride. Mary Bradford was absolutely exhausted by the time we got home.

Auburn

Now that we are the proud owners of a camper trailer, we have recently taken some trips to Auburn to support the Tigers which by the judge of this season, they desperately need. Mary Bradford absolutely loves the camper and everything that involves going to "Awww-bren". She has been to one game where she stood up in our seats and started chanting, "Let's go Awww-bren..." That is of course, after a couple trips down the many many steps for something to drink, something to eat, Dippin' Dots ice cream, etc. She knows that when we put her orange on, we are going on a trip. Although I was hesitant on purchasing a camper at first, I will say that it has been a great family experience for all of us.